DOCSLIB.ORG

Attentional Bias and Its Temporal Dynamics Among War Veterans Suffering from Chronic Pain: Investigating the Contribution of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Attentional Bias and Its Temporal Dynamics Among War Veterans Suffering from Chronic Pain: Investigating the Contribution of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms Attentional bias and its temporal dynamics among war veterans suffering from chronic pain: investigating the contribution of post-traumatic stress symptoms Mahdi Mazidi a,b, Kelsey Vig c,Seyran Ranjbar d,Mohammad-Reza Ebrahimi e, Ali Khatibi f* a Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia b Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran c Department of Psychology, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada d Psychology Department, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran e Military Psychiatry Center, 505 Psychiatric hospital, AJA University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran f Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada * Corresponding Author: Ali Khatibi, [email protected], address: NW141, Montreal Neurological Institute, Montreal, Canada, Phone: +1-514-398-5564 Funding sources: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Conflict of interests: Authors declare no conflict of interest regarding the current submission 1 Abstract Background: Cognitive models propose that attentional dysregulation, including an attentional bias towards threat, is one of the factors through which chronic pain and post- traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) maintain and exacerbate one another. The current investigation assessed the attentional bias for painful facial expressions and its relationship with PTSS, using both traditional and variability-based attentional bias measures, among veterans with chronic pain and PTSS and controls. Method: Fifty-four veterans with chronic pain and 30 age/education-matched controls participated in this investigation. Participants completed a self-report measure of PTSS and a modified version of the dot-probe task with painful, happy, and neutral facial expressions. Attention was assessed using both traditional and variability-based reaction time measures of attentional bias. Results: Veterans directed attention away from painful facial expressions (i.e., avoidance) relative to both the control group (between-subject effect) and relative to neutral faces (within- subject effect). Veterans also showed significantly elevated attentional bias variability for both happy and painful facial expressions compared to controls. Attentional bias variability for happy and painful facial expressions was correlated with PTSS among all participants. Conclusion: Veterans with chronic pain and PTSS avoided pain-related stimuli and displayed an overall attentional dysregulation for emotional facial expressions. Avoidance of pain cues may be a coping strategy that these individuals develop under stressful conditions. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. Keywords: Attentional bias; trial-level bias score; post-traumatic stress disorder; chronic pain; veterans; dot-probe task 2 1. Introduction Various theoretical models include attentional biases (ABs), or the preferential allocation of attention towards or away from certain types of stimuli (Cisler & Koster, 2010), as important mechanisms influencing the development and maintenance of psychological disorders (Beck & Clark, 1997; Mathews & Mackintosh, 1998). ABs include hypervigilance, where attention is directed towards relevant stimuli, maintenance, where there is difficulty disengaging attention from relevant stimuli, and avoidance, where attention is directed away from relevant stimuli (Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2007). Most of the research on AB and psychological disorders has examined an AB for threat in anxiety-related disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Some researchers describe the association between AB for threat and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) as a robust phenomenon (Buckley, Galovski, Blanchard, & Hickling, 2003; Constans, 2005) while others suggest that results supporting this association are mixed and weak at best (Schäfer, Zvielli, Hofler, Wittchen, & Bernstein, 2018). Several studies with null findings have been reported in the literature on the AB for threat and PTSS (e.g., Elsesser, Sartory, & Tackenberg, 2004, 2005), and failure to replicate significant findings is common in the AB literature (e.g., Kimble, Frueh, & Marks, 2009). Chronic pain has been described as pain that persists for at least 3 months and leads to functional impairment (International Association of the Study of Pain, 1986). Researchers and clinicians have largely shifted away from a purely biomedical understanding of chronic pain and moved towards a biopsychosocial perspective, including a focus on how cognition contributes to chronic pain. For example, the fear-avoidance model recognizes the important role of attentional processes in the maintenance of chronic pain (Crombez, Eccleston, Van Damme, Vlaeyen, & Karoly, 2012). When pain is acute, hypervigilance for pain information can be adaptive in the short-term and help the physical recovery process by encouraging 3 avoidance of behaviors that may cause further injury; but, hypervigilance and behavioral avoidance after the acute pain stage can lead to disuse of muscle and a lower pain threshold (Crombez et al., 2012). Despite theoretical support for chronic pain-related ABs, empirical support for these biases has been inconsistent. According to Crombez and colleagues (2013), there is a small (d = 0.134), but significant, within-group AB towards sensory pain words in individuals with chronic pain. Healthy controls did not demonstrate the same AB; however, there was no significant difference in the AB for pain-related stimuli between individuals with chronic pain and healthy controls. Chronic pain frequently co-occurs with anxiety disorders, and with PTSS in particular. An estimated 18.9% of individuals with chronic pain reported trauma exposure and PTSS (Ravn, Vaegter, Cardel, & Andersen, 2018). Prevalence estimates are even greater when examining specific populations. For example, recent reviews found that 50% of veterans with chronic pain also had PTSS (Fishbain, Pulikal, Lewis, & Gao, 2017; Siqveland, Hussain, Lindstrom, Ruud, & Hauff, 2017). Various theoretical models posit potential explanations for the association between chronic pain and PTSS/PTSD. The mutual maintenance model put forth by Sharp and Harvey (2001) suggests that chronic pain and PTSD maintain and exacerbate one another through specific cognitive, affective, and behavioral components (e.g., avoidance, attentional and reasoning biases). The shared vulnerability model proposed by Asmundson and colleagues (Asmundson, Coons, Taylor, & Katz, 2002; Asmundson & Katz, 2009) also includes ABs as one of the potential mechanisms that contribute to the co-occurrence of chronic pain and PTSD. However, once again, theoretical support exceeds empirical support as there is very little research examining ABs in individuals with comorbid chronic pain and PTSD. ABs towards pain-related stimuli have been demonstrated in individuals with chronic pain (e.g., Khatibi, Dehghani, Sharpe, Asmundson, & Pouretemad, 2009; Mahmoodi- 4 Aghdam, Dehghani, Ahmadi, Khorrami Banaraki, & Khatibi, 2017) and those with PTSS separately (e.g., Thomas, Goegan, Newman, Arndt, & Sears, 2013); however, to date, only two studies have investigated ABs in participants with comorbid chronic pain and PTSS. Researchers used the modified Stroop task, a variation of the original Stroop task (Stroop, 1935), with lists of emotionally salient (i.e., pain-related, trauma-related, and positive) and neutral words printed in various colors (Beck, Freeman, Shipherd, Hamblen, & Lackner, 2001). Participants were instructed to name the color of each word (e.g., “agony” written in blue). Longer RTs when reading emotionally salient words compared to neutral words indicates the presence of an AB (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). The modified Stroop task only provides an overall index of AB; that is, the paradigm cannot be used to assess the direction of an AB (i.e., hypervigilance, maintenance, or avoidance). The researchers compared biases across participants with comorbid chronic pain and PTSD, those with chronic pain only, and trauma-exposed controls (Beck et al., 2001). Individuals with comorbid chronic pain and PTSD and those with chronic pain only displayed an AB for pain-related words, as evidenced by both within- and between-group effects. In other words, individuals with chronic pain (with or without comorbid PTSD) responded slower to pain-related words compared to neutral or positive words, and they responded slower to pain-related words compared to trauma-exposed controls. More recently, researchers used the startle probe paradigm in combination with pain- related, trauma-related, health-related, pleasant, and neutral words to compare ABs in individuals with chronic pain alone, PTSD alone, comorbid chronic pain and PTSD, any other anxiety disorder, and trauma-exposed controls (Carleton, Duranceau, McMillan, & Asmundson, 2018). The researchers hypothesized that participants would display AB towards diagnosis-congruent stimuli (e.g., pain-related stimuli for participants with chronic pain), which were thought to be perceived as the most threatening. However, compared to participants 5 with anxiety disorders and the control group, individuals with PTSD or chronic pain showed greater startle intensity and delayed startle peak (responded more slowly, indicating higher fear-related reactivity)
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Task-Based Taxonomy of Cognitive Biases for Information Visualization
    A Task-based Taxonomy of Cognitive Biases for Information Visualization Evanthia Dimara, Steven Franconeri, Catherine Plaisant, Anastasia Bezerianos, and Pierre Dragicevic Three kinds of limitations The Computer The Display 2 Three kinds of limitations The Computer The Display The Human 3 Three kinds of limitations: humans • Human vision ️ has limitations • Human reasoning 易 has limitations The Human 4 ️Perceptual bias Magnitude estimation 5 ️Perceptual bias Magnitude estimation Color perception 6 易 Cognitive bias Behaviors when humans consistently behave irrationally Pohl’s criteria distilled: • Are predictable and consistent • People are unaware they’re doing them • Are not misunderstandings 7 Ambiguity effect, Anchoring or focalism, Anthropocentric thinking, Anthropomorphism or personification, Attentional bias, Attribute substitution, Automation bias, Availability heuristic, Availability cascade, Backfire effect, Bandwagon effect, Base rate fallacy or Base rate neglect, Belief bias, Ben Franklin effect, Berkson's paradox, Bias blind spot, Choice-supportive bias, Clustering illusion, Compassion fade, Confirmation bias, Congruence bias, Conjunction fallacy, Conservatism (belief revision), Continued influence effect, Contrast effect, Courtesy bias, Curse of knowledge, Declinism, Decoy effect, Default effect, Denomination effect, Disposition effect, Distinction bias, Dread aversion, Dunning–Kruger effect, Duration neglect, Empathy gap, End-of-history illusion, Endowment effect, Exaggerated expectation, Experimenter's or expectation bias,
    [Show full text]
  • The Lightbulb Paradox: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE LIGHTBULB PARADOX: EVIDENCE FROM TWO RANDOMIZED EXPERIMENTS Hunt Allcott Dmitry Taubinsky Working Paper 19713 http://www.nber.org/papers/w19713 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 December 2013 We are grateful to Raj Chetty, Lucas Davis, Stefano DellaVigna, Mushfiq Mubarak, Sendhil Mullainathan, Emmanuel Saez, Josh Schwartzstein, and other colleagues, as well as seminar audiences at the ASSA Annual Meeting, the Behavioral Economics Annual Meeting, Berkeley, the European Summer Symposium for Economic Theory, Harvard, the NBER Public Economics Meetings, Resources for the Future, Stanford, the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics, UCLA, the University of California Energy Institute, and the University of Chicago for constructive feedback. We thank our research assistants - Jeremiah Hair, Nina Yang, and Tiffany Yee - as well as management at the partner company, for their work on the in-store experiment. Thanks to Stefan Subias, Benjamin DiPaola, and Poom Nukulkij at GfK for their work on the TESS experiment. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation for financial support. Files containing code for replication, the in-store experiment protocol, and audio for the TESS experiment can be downloaded from Hunt Allcott's website. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer- reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2013 by Hunt Allcott and Dmitry Taubinsky.
    [Show full text]
  • The Threat of Appearing Prejudiced and Race-Based Attentional Biases Jennifer A
    PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Research Report The Threat of Appearing Prejudiced and Race-Based Attentional Biases Jennifer A. Richeson and Sophie Trawalter Department of Psychology and C2S: The Center on Social Disparities and Health at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University ABSTRACT—The current work tested whether external heightened anxiety in anticipation of, as well as during, those motivation to respond without prejudice toward Blacks is interracial interactions that they are unable to avoid (Plant, associated with biased patterns of selective attention that 2004; Plant & Devine, 1998). Research by Amodio has found, reflect a threat response to Black individuals. In a dot- furthermore, that such high-EM individuals automatically probe attentional bias paradigm, White participants with evaluate Black targets more negatively than White targets, as low and high external motivation to respond without revealed by potentiated startle eye-blink amplitudes (Amodio, prejudice toward Blacks (i.e., low-EM and high-EM in- Harmon-Jones, & Devine, 2003), unlike people who are inter- dividuals, respectively) were presented with pairs of White nally motivated to respond in nonprejudiced ways toward and Black male faces that bore either neutral or happy Blacks. Taken together, this work suggests that exposure to facial expressions; on each trial, the faces were displayed Blacks automatically triggers negative affective reactions, in- for either 30 ms or 450 ms. The findings were consistent cluding heightened anxiety, in high-EM individuals. with those of previous research on threat and attention: Although Amodio’s work has begun to explore some of the High-EM participants revealed an attentional bias toward component processes that underlie differences between high- and neutral Black faces presented for 30 ms, but an attentional low-EM individuals’ affective and stereotypical evaluations of bias away from neutral Black faces presented for 450 ms.
    [Show full text]
  • Attentional Bias and Subjective Risk in Hypochondriacal Concern. Polly Beth Hitchcock Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1993 Attentional Bias and Subjective Risk in Hypochondriacal Concern. Polly Beth Hitchcock Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Hitchcock, Polly Beth, "Attentional Bias and Subjective Risk in Hypochondriacal Concern." (1993). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5641. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5641 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.
    [Show full text]
  • Emotional Reasoning and Parent-Based Reasoning in Normal Children
    Morren, M., Muris, P., Kindt, M. Emotional reasoning and parent-based reasoning in normal children. Child Psychiatry and Human Development: 35, 2004, nr. 1, p. 3-20 Postprint Version 1.0 Journal website http://www.springerlink.com/content/105587/ Pubmed link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dop t=Abstract&list_uids=15626322&query_hl=45&itool=pubmed_docsum DOI 10.1023/B:CHUD.0000039317.50547.e3 Address correspondence to M. Morren, Department of Medical, Clinical, and Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected]. Emotional Reasoning and Parent-based Reasoning in Normal Children MATTIJN MORREN, MSC; PETER MURIS, PHD; MEREL KINDT, PHD DEPARTMENT OF MEDICAL, CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, MAASTRICHT UNIVERSITY, THE NETHERLANDS ABSTRACT: A previous study by Muris, Merckelbach, and Van Spauwen1 demonstrated that children display emotional reasoning irrespective of their anxiety levels. That is, when estimating whether a situation is dangerous, children not only rely on objective danger information but also on their own anxiety-response. The present study further examined emotional reasoning in children aged 7–13 years (N =508). In addition, it was investigated whether children also show parent-based reasoning, which can be defined as the tendency to rely on anxiety-responses that can be observed in parents. Children completed self-report questionnaires of anxiety, depression, and emotional and parent-based reasoning. Evidence was found for both emotional and parent-based reasoning effects. More specifically, children’s danger ratings were not only affected by objective danger information, but also by anxiety-response information in both objective danger and safety stories.
    [Show full text]
  • Redalyc.Effects of State and Trait Anxiety on Selective Attention To
    International Journal of Psychological Research ISSN: 2011-2084 [email protected] Universidad de San Buenaventura Colombia Ortega Marín, Jeniffer; Jiménez Solanilla, Karim; Acosta Barreto, Rocio Effects of state and trait anxiety on selective attention to threatening stimuli in a non-clinical sample of school children International Journal of Psychological Research, vol. 8, núm. 1, 2015, pp. 75-89 Universidad de San Buenaventura Medellín, Colombia Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=299033832007 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative INT.J.PSYCHOL.RES. 2015; 8 (1): 75-90 Effects of state and trait anxiety on selective attention to threatening stimuli in a non- clinical sample of school children Efectos de la ansiedad estado-rasgo sobre la atención selectiva a estímulos amenazantes en una muestra no clínica de niños escolarizados R e s e a r c h a a a, Jeniffer Ortega Marín , Karim Jiménez Solanilla , and Rocio Acosta Barreto * a Faculty of Psychology, Universidad San Buenaventura,Bogotá, Colombia. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Attentional biases, consisting of a preferential processing of threatening stimuli, have been found in anxious adults as predicted by several cognitive models. However, Article history: studies with non-clinical samples of children have provided mixed results. Therefore, Received: 30-07-2014 the aim of this research was to determine the effects of state and trait anxiety on the Revised: 28-08-2014 selective attention towards threatening stimuli in a non-clinical sample of school Accepted: 10-12-2014 children (age: 8 to 13, n = 110) using the dot-probe task.
    [Show full text]
  • Cognitive Biases in Software Engineering: a Systematic Mapping Study
    Cognitive Biases in Software Engineering: A Systematic Mapping Study Rahul Mohanani, Iflaah Salman, Burak Turhan, Member, IEEE, Pilar Rodriguez and Paul Ralph Abstract—One source of software project challenges and failures is the systematic errors introduced by human cognitive biases. Although extensively explored in cognitive psychology, investigations concerning cognitive biases have only recently gained popularity in software engineering research. This paper therefore systematically maps, aggregates and synthesizes the literature on cognitive biases in software engineering to generate a comprehensive body of knowledge, understand state of the art research and provide guidelines for future research and practise. Focusing on bias antecedents, effects and mitigation techniques, we identified 65 articles (published between 1990 and 2016), which investigate 37 cognitive biases. Despite strong and increasing interest, the results reveal a scarcity of research on mitigation techniques and poor theoretical foundations in understanding and interpreting cognitive biases. Although bias-related research has generated many new insights in the software engineering community, specific bias mitigation techniques are still needed for software professionals to overcome the deleterious effects of cognitive biases on their work. Index Terms—Antecedents of cognitive bias. cognitive bias. debiasing, effects of cognitive bias. software engineering, systematic mapping. 1 INTRODUCTION OGNITIVE biases are systematic deviations from op- knowledge. No analogous review of SE research exists. The timal reasoning [1], [2]. In other words, they are re- purpose of this study is therefore as follows: curring errors in thinking, or patterns of bad judgment Purpose: to review, summarize and synthesize the current observable in different people and contexts. A well-known state of software engineering research involving cognitive example is confirmation bias—the tendency to pay more at- biases.
    [Show full text]
  • Infographic I.10
    The Digital Health Revolution: Leaving No One Behind The global AI in healthcare market is growing fast, with an expected increase from $4.9 billion in 2020 to $45.2 billion by 2026. There are new solutions introduced every day that address all areas: from clinical care and diagnosis, to remote patient monitoring to EHR support, and beyond. But, AI is still relatively new to the industry, and it can be difficult to determine which solutions can actually make a difference in care delivery and business operations. 59 Jan 2021 % of Americans believe returning Jan-June 2019 to pre-coronavirus life poses a risk to health and well being. 11 41 % % ...expect it will take at least 6 The pandemic has greatly increased the 65 months before things get number of US adults reporting depression % back to normal (updated April and/or anxiety.5 2021).4 Up to of consumers now interested in telehealth going forward. $250B 76 57% of providers view telehealth more of current US healthcare spend % favorably than they did before COVID-19.7 could potentially be virtualized.6 The dramatic increase in of Medicare primary care visits the conducted through 90% $3.5T telehealth has shown longevity, with rates in annual U.S. health expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions. since April 2020 0.1 43.5 leveling off % % Most of these can be prevented by simple around 30%.8 lifestyle changes and regular health screenings9 Feb. 2020 Apr. 2020 OCCAM’S RAZOR • CONJUNCTION FALLACY • DELMORE EFFECT • LAW OF TRIVIALITY • COGNITIVE FLUENCY • BELIEF BIAS • INFORMATION BIAS Digital health ecosystems are transforming• AMBIGUITY BIAS • STATUS medicineQUO BIAS • SOCIAL COMPARISONfrom BIASa rea• DECOYctive EFFECT • REACTANCEdiscipline, • REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY • SYSTEM JUSTIFICATION • BACKFIRE EFFECT • ENDOWMENT EFFECT • PROCESSING DIFFICULTY EFFECT • PSEUDOCERTAINTY EFFECT • DISPOSITION becoming precise, preventive,EFFECT • ZERO-RISK personalized, BIAS • UNIT BIAS • IKEA EFFECT and • LOSS AVERSION participatory.
    [Show full text]
  • Attentional Bias Components in Anxiety and Depression: a Systematic Review
    Attentional Bias Components in Anxiety and Depression: A Systematic Review Denise Rogersa, Edel Murphya, Sarah Jane Windersa & Ciara M. Greenea aSchool of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Corresponding author: Associate Professor Ciara M. Greene Email: [email protected] Postal address: School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Tel: +353 1 7168334 1 Abstract Attentional biases have been identified as a transdiagnostic cognitive process that may underlie a range of psychological disorders. They comprise three measurable and observable components; facilitation (rapid detection of concern-related stimuli), difficulty in disengagement (slower attentional shifting away from concern-related stimuli) and attentional avoidance (allocation of attention away from concern-related stimuli). Attentional biases to negative stimuli are common in anxiety and depression; however, their shared (i.e. transdiagnostic) and distinct components have not yet been systematically investigated. Literature searches were conducted on the PsychINFO, Embase, PubMed and Web of Science databases, yielding 560 articles after duplicates were removed. Articles were subject to abstract and full-text screening against study eligibility criteria. Twenty-five articles were included in the extraction phase. Data regarding population, experimental paradigm and attentional bias components were extracted. Results are suggestive of facilitation as a transdiagnostic attentional process across anxiety, depression and those with co- occurring anxiety and depression. There was strong evidence of avoidance in depression, with weaker evidence in anxiety, while delayed disengagement was observed in anxiety, but not in depression. Critical gaps in the literature were also identified. These findings provide support for the transdisagnostic nature of attentional biases, shedding light on the commonalities observed across diagnostic categories.
    [Show full text]
  • John Collins, President, Forensic Foundations Group
    On Bias in Forensic Science National Commission on Forensic Science – May 12, 2014 56-year-old Vatsala Thakkar was a doctor in India but took a job as a convenience store cashier to help pay family expenses. She was stabbed to death outside her store trying to thwart a theft in November 2008. Bloody Footwear Impression Bloody Tire Impression What was the threat? 1. We failed to ask ourselves if this was a footwear impression. 2. The appearance of the impression combined with the investigator’s interpretation created prejudice. The accuracy of our analysis became threatened by our prejudice. Types of Cognitive Bias Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases | Accessed on April 14, 2014 Anchoring or focalism Hindsight bias Pseudocertainty effect Illusory superiority Levels-of-processing effect Attentional bias Hostile media effect Reactance Ingroup bias List-length effect Availability heuristic Hot-hand fallacy Reactive devaluation Just-world phenomenon Misinformation effect Availability cascade Hyperbolic discounting Recency illusion Moral luck Modality effect Backfire effect Identifiable victim effect Restraint bias Naive cynicism Mood-congruent memory bias Bandwagon effect Illusion of control Rhyme as reason effect Naïve realism Next-in-line effect Base rate fallacy or base rate neglect Illusion of validity Risk compensation / Peltzman effect Outgroup homogeneity bias Part-list cueing effect Belief bias Illusory correlation Selective perception Projection bias Peak-end rule Bias blind spot Impact bias Semmelweis
    [Show full text]
  • Effects of State and Trait Anxiety on Selective Attention to Threatening
    INT.J.PSYCHOL.RES. 2015; 8 (1): 75-90 Effects of state and trait anxiety on selective attention to threatening stimuli in a non- clinical sample of school children Efectos de la ansiedad estado-rasgo sobre la atención selectiva a estímulos amenazantes en una muestra no clínica de niños escolarizados R e s e a r c h a a a, Jeniffer Ortega Marín , Karim Jiménez Solanilla , and Rocio Acosta Barreto * a Faculty of Psychology, Universidad San Buenaventura,Bogotá, Colombia. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Attentional biases, consisting of a preferential processing of threatening stimuli, have been found in anxious adults as predicted by several cognitive models. However, Article history: studies with non-clinical samples of children have provided mixed results. Therefore, Received: 30-07-2014 the aim of this research was to determine the effects of state and trait anxiety on the Revised: 28-08-2014 selective attention towards threatening stimuli in a non-clinical sample of school Accepted: 10-12-2014 children (age: 8 to 13, n = 110) using the dot-probe task. This study did not reveal an effect of trait anxiety on selective attention towards threatening stimuli. However, a Key words: significant difference was found between participants with low state anxiety and high attentional bias, dot- state anxiety. Nevertheless, the effect size was small. Specifically, participants with low probe task, trait state anxiety showed a bias towards threatening stimuli. Overall, the findings of this anxiety, state anxiety, research with a non-clinical sample of school children suggest that attentional biases non-clinical sample, towards threatening information, which has been repeatedly found in anxious adults, and schoolchildren.
    [Show full text]
  • 50 Cognitive and Affective Biases in Medicine (Alphabetically)
    50 Cognitive and Affective Biases in Medicine (alphabetically) Pat Croskerry MD, PhD, FRCP(Edin), Critical Thinking Program, Dalhousie University Aggregate bias: when physicians believe that aggregated data, such as those used to develop clinical practice guidelines, do not apply to individual patients (especially their own), they are exhibiting the aggregate fallacy. The belief that their patients are atypical or somehow exceptional, may lead to errors of commission, e.g. ordering x-rays or other tests when guidelines indicate none are required. Ambiguity effect: there is often an irreducible uncertainty in medicine and ambiguity is associated with uncertainty. The ambiguity effect is due to decision makers avoiding options when the probability is unknown. In considering options on a differential diagnosis, for example, this would be illustrated by a tendency to select options for which the probability of a particular outcome is known over an option for which the probability is unknown. The probability may be unknown because of lack of knowledge or because the means to obtain the probability (a specific test, or imaging) is unavailable. The cognitive miser function (choosing an option that requires less cognitive effort) may also be at play here. Anchoring: the tendency to perceptually lock on to salient features in the patient’s initial presentation too early in the diagnostic process, and failure to adjust this initial impression in the light of later information. This bias may be severely compounded by the confirmation bias. Ascertainment bias: when a physician’s thinking is shaped by prior expectation; stereotyping and gender bias are both good examples. Attentional bias: the tendency to believe there is a relationship between two variables when instances are found of both being present.
    [Show full text]